Marsh Hawk Review is an online poetry journal sponsored by the Marsh Hawk Press collective. Marsh Hawk Review will appear twice a year, under the revolving editorship of collective members. Each issue will offer a selection of poems solicited by the editor, in addition to new work posted by poets in the collective.

Saturday, September 13, 2008

Nathaniel Mackey

Ghost of a Trance

—“mu” sixty-first part—

Gray morning, blue morning, afeather blown between. Mashedearth incumbent, gone up from, nevermore naked if ever to be naked, brink what it was to be on…Where next we came stick-figurepeople greeted us. Abstract wasabstract, also something else. Line,shape, extension each otherthan itself, of number we’d have said the same… Aspect arrestedus, riveted we stood… Stick-figure epiphany held us in our tracks,everyone’s bones in full view… Graymorning, blue morning, an unheardstring between. Bad heads’ morningreluctance, ennui’s next-day dispatch… Wewere chill, shiver, exegetic sweat, backed-up interpreters put upon by sluff, noneof us could say what was what. Paleadmonishment poised upon lack, liketo unlike, pale strain recumbent, re- combinant, rude amniotic straw…Took leave, leave long since taken, awoketo what would otherwise not have been.We contested birth, we wanted to be pre-andoumboulouous, done-dead gnostics again…Sound bubbled up, it kept bubbling, sonicresidue, sonic remit. A fickle sonance,fraught sonance, warning we knew nothing,stick-figure entourage otherwise issue-less, beginning to be remiss it seemed… Erst-while ecstatics’ lapsed enchantment, trancegone none could say since when… Ghost of what lifted us, ghost what lifted us, erstwhileenchantment between… Fell back, full-outextended. Pilgrim someone called me, I saidno, then I said yes… Brax was on the boxwas what it was, toned uncertainty. Stick-figurecounsel all air, edge, angle, down from where we’dbeen and we were again where the Alone lived, adage, had it not been so abstract, it might’vebeen… Long day of the abalone-shell sunset… Stood among redwoods expecting the worst… Whatwas of note and what abjured nothing. What wasall, none, one, all thesame

_________________It was the ghost of a trance. I was aguest of the trance. What went on weblamed on the ghost… It was the ghost of a trance, each of us a guestof the trance. No two times were the same… When we hit a wrong note we saidnothing. When we hit the right notewe said so what… Tell my horse, we were told, fluke solace, horse wewere mounted by… What was done was done by the ghost, gray morning, bluemorning, eternity be-tween

____________________Told my horse we would gather at Nod House, down drinks at theno-host bar. Dirt was in the drinks we drank, planet sludge. Double-taketold its horse whoa, told it unwhoa,back and forth and back without end… Talk spun our heads, toldour horses ride on. Unresolvedwhich to insist on, stick with. Could it whoa unwhoa’s ramble unresolved…

Spinning heads made us feel we sat on swivelseats… Double-take talked us in, tookus in

____________________ Sat again at the same table, no two times the same, twinship long sincegone. Leaned back, the back legs ofour chairs broke, Nod House Nub’s newaddress… A straining look made our faces look raw, made our skin flush… Dreamt each other’s dream, donned each other’s costume, hosted one another, one stepped in as one stepped out

2 comments:

Nate Mackey's work is one of the most remarkable achievements in North American poetry in the last 20 years. As soon as I start reading his work, I feel as if I have been taken back to a neighborhood (universe) to which I have not been in years.

A remarkable inventive use of language, a fascinating cosmology which is revealed a little more with each visit and a vibrant sense of justice are but three of the strongest aspects of his work for me.

I don't believe there has ever been a poet who has incorporated the jazz impulse as well as Nate and look forward to seeing more of the mu thread.

As soon as I saw his name on the list of contributors, I was interested. Nice work, boys.